Panasonic Viera TX-L32E3B - More Mostly Good Picture News

Summary

Our Score

7/10

User Score

Review Price free/subscription

There’s quite a nice direct, unprocessed look to images too, which folk who simply can’t get on with video processing might like - even though it means there are no tools in the TV’s arsenal for combating the set’s standard def motion blur issue.

The L32E3B deserves kudos for the most part, too, for its contrast performance. For while it doesn’t deliver absolutely the inkiest black levels we’ve seen on a 32in TV, they do get deep enough to avoid causing you any distraction during all but the very darkest of scenes. Even better, they’re delivered with practically no sign at all of the uneven backlighting so common with edge LED TVs. In fact, it’s even better than Panasonic’s flagship L32DT30 in this respect.

There is a bit of an issue with the screen’s contrast performance, though, in that we detected a few moments where the picture’s general brightness level jumped up or down quite aggressively when the footage being shown cut abruptly from very bright to very dark, or vice versa. This is down, presumably, to a built-in dynamic contrast system that adjusts the brightness downwards during dark scenes to boost black level response. Such features are commonplace on LCD TVs, but given that the one in the L32E3B can be quite aggressive, it would have been nice if Panasonic had provided the option to turn it off when watching something that has extremes of contrast in it.

To finish on an appropriately positive note, though, the L32E3B is a potentially good option for gamers, as we measured its input lag at under 10ms - which is about as good as it gets, really. The only downside is that the motion blur can distract a bit when you’re panning quickly around.

Sonically the L32E3B is par for the very thin TV course, really. Which means it sounds OK with basic, undemanding stuff like your average daytime TV programme, but succumbs to harshness and thinness when pushed by a good action scene - thanks for the most part to a fairly fundamental shortage of bass.

Verdict

The L32E3B unexpectedly outperforms the 42in model from the same Panasonic series in terms of picture quality. And it also makes a better case for itself financially, since it costs a cool £65 less than the much more feature-heavy L32E30 step up model, whereas the L42E3B was only £35 less than the L42E30B.

While it’s thus a much more attractive entry-level option than the L42E3B, though, its motion handling issues together with its shortage of multimedia features mean we can’t quite award the L32E3B full TrustedReviews Recommended status.